Fic: People Skills

[stiffleaves]

Title: People Skills
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Characters/Pairings: Chris and Ben friendship. With a dash of Jen Barkley and a dash of April.
Rating: PG
Word count: ~1700
Summary: Alternate take on Soda Tax: Ben remembers how to not be an idiot.
Notes: Happy birthday, stillscape! Hope you're having a literally fantastic day! This is based on how you

Comments

[beanyb]

I'm now erasing all memories of what happened in Soda Tax, and replacing it with your vastly superior version!

[stiffleaves]

Yay! Thanks so much for reading!

[bowlsohard]

Oh I really really wish this version of Chris was on the show this season. He is entirely too depressing for my taste. You should write for his character on the show!

Also I wanted to ask you...did you notice how Jen pointed @ Ben and said his full name this week? Chris left an impression!

[stiffleaves]

Aw, you flatter me. Tell that to Mike Schur, haha.

I actually don't mind what they're doing with Chris so far this season, but I've minded how some of it was presented (these weird overly on-the-nose characterizations they've had going on). I mean, Chris is really depressed. That can't just go away from one moment to the next. So I'm glad sleeping with Jen didn't just magically cure everything.

Ben in Soda Tax was a nightmare to me though. Completely over the top and out of character. Just WTF.

[stiffleaves]

Oh, and I totally forgot to mention the most important thing -- YES, I did notice, and wasn't that just the best thing ever in the universe? In my impossibly skewed and embellished headcanon now, Jen and Chris call each other every night before going to sleep. I don't even care, let me have my illusions. :D

[bowlsohard]

I immediatley thought of you! And I agree that they are still in touch ;)

[americnxidiot]

"Chris loves April and Andy and Ben-and everyone and the whole entire world. And he knows they love him too, because they are his friends."

This might be the most "Chris" thing I've ever read in a fic.

[stiffleaves]

Hehe. Thanks for reading!

[saucydiva]

Love this! Much better than the episode. I love the paragraph most especially about Ben's clothes getting stolen and getting rescued by Chris. I'm adding that to my personal head canon, because of course that happened.

Also, taking "New Amsterdam" as my personal shout-out.

[stiffleaves]

Thanks! Always, when I write Chris and Ben backstory, I look at a map of Indiana and pick a town not-quite-randomly.

They must have some awesome and strange stories to tell of all those years on the road, though, right? Can we not get a scene where they reminisce about some of those times? It's an untapped gold mine.

[whimsical_irony]

Did I already tell you how great I think this is? This is how Soda Tax should have gone down, dammit. Also, all your character voices are spot-on.

[stiffleaves]

Thank you! And I mean, yeah, it is sort of anticlimactic, but come one, the actual episode was painful to sit through. Ben was out of control.

[whimsical_irony]

Anticlimactic but realistic > weirdly over-the-top and cringeworthy, I think.